Smart Investors Run The Numbers. Wise Ones Do More.

Author

Roger Blankenship
September 05, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

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How to Calculate Opportunity Cost

Every dollar you invest in one property is a dollar you can’t invest somewhere else. That’s the essence of opportunity cost — the hidden price of your decision.

Every smart investor runs the numbers. The wise investor considers more: stability, diversification, personal bandwidth, risk tolerance, even age. Every “do this” comes with a corresponding “can’t do that.” Evaluating those trade-offs is what separates the simply smart from the truly wise.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

Say you’ve got $50,000 in cash. You could:

  • Put it into a flip projected to earn $20,000 profit in six months.

  • Or, put it into a rental that generates $400/month in net cash flow.

On paper, both look good. But here’s the real question: What are you giving up?

  • If you choose the flip, your $50K is tied up for six months. That means you miss out on six months of cash flow ($2,400).

  • If you choose the rental, you might earn steady income — but you’ve missed a 40% annualized return from flipping.

Opportunity cost isn’t about what you make — it’s about what you could have made. It’s not just about what you did — it’s also about what you couldn’t do.

Run the numbers, weigh the factors, and remember: wisdom lives in the trade-offs.

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